by A B Facey
When I awoke it was still dark. A dingo’s howl close by sent shivers down my back, as it always did. Several dingoes answered back but they were further away. I would have liked to get up to change Dinnie’s tether rope so she could get some fresh grazing but the dingo howls made me too scared to move. I lay there keeping very still until daylight.
In the morning the rain had stopped and the sky was clear. I moved out of my bush bed and walked about. My legs were stiff with the cold. I shifted Dinnie to where she could get plenty of grass, and I tried again to eat some myself. Although I could swallow the juices I couldn’t swallow the grass. The scrub that I had eaten and liked the day before didn’t grow in this part of the country, or I couldn’t find any.
I waited for the sun, looking to where I expected it to rise. Then I got the surprise of my life. It rose behind me. This confused me completely. I realised now that I was absolutely lost. I sat down on the saddle and wondered what I should do. Then I decided that if I kept travelling in one direction, I must come across some road or river that I could follow back and out of this hopeless situation that I had got myself into.
I saddled Dinnie and rode off in a south-west direction, or at least what I thought was a south-west direction. Dinnie walked at a very lively pace, like she knew where she was going. We went along valleys and over high hills and flat scrubby country. Then, when we were emerging from a small valley up onto a rise, Dinnie pricked up her ears. She stopped still, looking, as if she had spotted something. I got off her back, led her back down into the valley and tied her to a clump of scrub. Then I sneaked back up to the rise to see what was there, being very careful not to be seen. Luckily the wind was blowing towards me so whatever it was wouldn’t be able to smell me. I got up close to the spot, keeping very low and staying behind clumps of scrub. Then I saw something. For a few minutes I couldn’t make out what it was. I moved closer until I got into a position to see clearly. Then I was scared stiff. It was a black man, very wild-looking, with a long bushy beard. His only dress was a loin cloth – a real wild one if I ever I saw one. He was doing something on the ground, bending down on one knee. I stopped where I was, behind a thick bunch of scrub, watching. After a few minutes, he picked up the hindquarters of a large kangaroo and put it over his shoulder, then picked up a bundle of spears and set off over the rise.
When I was sure he was gone I went and had a look at the spot where he had been. There I found the front half of a kangaroo that he had just skinned. The ’roo was probably too big for him to carry whole. I noticed that he hadn’t taken the liver, so, being starving hungry, I took it out and ate it all. Then I took the rest of the carcase down to where I had left Dinnie, tied it to the saddle and walked, leading the pony.
It was now well into the afternoon. I felt much better and my appetite seemed to be satisfied. I came across a small running stream and followed it the way the water was going. I first had a drink of the water and it was fresh and clear.
All of a sudden I became very ill and commenced to vomit. I felt as if I had been poisoned. I put the tether rope on Dinnie and lay down near a large granite boulder. I was so sick I was unable to unsaddle Dinnie. I just lay there and vomited – I couldn’t stop. My stomach was empty but it kept on heaving. I felt too weak to do anything. Finally, when the vomiting stopped, I managed to get up. I untied the kangaroo from the saddle, took the saddle off and rested it against a boulder. Then I tethered Dinnie to where she could get plenty of good feed. I lay down after putting the carcase up as high as I could on top of the boulder. I was glad to lie there and let come what may. Funny, I wasn’t frightened – I just didn’t care what became of me.
It was hours before I went to sleep. The noise of running water helped to deaden some of the night noises. The weather was fine and warm. In fact, during the day it had been quite hot and my clothes were dry. Finally I fell asleep, and woke just before daylight, on the fourth day, with terrible pains in my stomach. Daylight came and I was still in shocking pain. I rolled on the ground with the pain and felt very faint. It was nearly midday before the pains eased.
Dinnie stood looking at me. She couldn’t understand why I hadn’t shifted her tether to fresh grass. When the terrible pains left me, I had a bad attack of scouring and was not able to do anything until late in the afternoon. When I was well enough, I put the saddle on Dinnie – although very weak I managed – then I had a drink of water and felt a little better.
I pushed the kangaroo carcase off the boulder, and getting some sharp-edged stones I set about bruising pieces of the flesh of the carcase, and putting each piece as I broke it off into my pockets. You would have thought I had a swarm of bees around me, there were so many blow-flies. The carcase was badly fly-blown, but that didn’t matter to me. I wanted to chew the kangaroo meat into small pieces later, when I felt better. By the time I had finished getting all the meat off the carcase that I could, the sun was close to setting. I saddled up and followed the stream hoping to find a better camping place.
This fourth day the sunset was beautiful. I came across very high ironstone cliffs on both sides of the water-course, and in places I had to make Dinnie walk in the water to get through. Just before dark I came to a place where the cliffs were wider apart; this made a beautiful wide valley with the water-course almost big enough to be called a river. Some of the cliffs were overhanging and protected from the weather, so I camped there.
On the verge between the cliff and the river there was plenty of feed for Dinnie. I unsaddled and tethered her and made myself a place to lie down for the night. I tried chewing some of the small pieces of kangaroo meat. After chewing for quite awhile and venturing to swallow, I was afraid of another vomiting bout, so I ate only two or three pieces. As I lay chewing I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps I had made a mistake in hiding from that black man. He may have been able to help me – almost anything would be better than what I was going through now. I swallowed a few more pieces of well-chewed meat and still had no ill effects. Finally I dozed off to sleep.
I awakened the next morning before daylight, and as I hadn’t vomited during the night, I started chewing the meat again and swallowed some more well-chewed pieces. When daylight came I shifted Dinnie’s tether rope and had a drink of water out of the stream. I think I was feeling a little better.
I was in the fifth day now and no sign of anything that would help me – no tracks, no cattle, no way of knowing how far I had travelled or in what direction. I made up my mind that no matter what happened, I would not leave the water-course. I would keep following the direction of the flowing water. It must eventually take me somewhere.
I saddled Dinnie and set off again. I felt very weak and discouraged. I kept on chewing and eating the small pieces of meat, and whenever I stopped to rest or have a drink, I would chew grass or the leaves of the scrub bushes. My stomach had settled down and didn’t revolt against the scanty food it was getting.
It was terribly hot so I had to rest every two or three hours. The flies were very bad and during the nights the mosquitoes took over, but the nights were much cooler. As I travelled, following the water-course, the country changed somewhat towards sundown. The going was very rough – mountains with huge boulders all over them – then a valley would open out into a large, flat scrubby plain with the everwinding water-course travelling on and on.
The next day was very similar to the fifth. The sun was very hot – so much so I was forced to lay up for about five hours in the middle of the day.
That night I slept close to the bank of the water-course. I found a sand patch that was nice and soft to sleep on. I was still chewing kangaroo meat but my supplies were getting very low. I felt a little stronger although the raw meat was all that my stomach had had, except a lot of juice from chewing grass. Near the sand patch were two large boulders close together, and in between them was a strip of sand. When I unsaddled Dinnie and tethered her to graze, I put the saddle at the end of the sand patch in between the boulders, and lay down. It was
a long time before I went to sleep. All sorts of frightening thoughts came to me. A person would have to be lost like I was to really know what it was like – it was dreadful.
34
DELIVERANCE
When I awakened in the morning of the seventh day I got a shock. Dinnie was over the other side of the stream. I could see her from where I was lying. I sat up and at first thought she must have got off the tether, then two black men jumped me, one from each side. I was unable to offer much resistance. I yelled, ‘Let me go!’ and tried to struggle free, but they held me and one of them called out to a third man who was on the other side of the stream with Dinnie. They could not understand my language. They spoke to one another but I didn’t know what they were saying either. The one with Dinnie brought her back over the stream, then they put the saddle on her and one of the men made signs to me. After awhile I realised that they wanted me to get on Dinnie’s back. I did this, then one of them took the reins and led her. One man was in front of him and the other one came up behind. We left the water-course and travelled north.
These black men looked very wild to me. They wore only a loin cloth – no hat or boots. The loin cloths were made out of kangaroo skins. They all had beards. I had been scared many times in my short life, but nothing like I was now.
The black men ran on their bare feet, and Dinnie had to trot to keep up with them most of the time. They travelled towards a large hill. It had a gradual slope and it took us about two hours to get to the top.
When we arrived at the top they made signs to me that I took for wanting me to get off Dinnie’s back. I did, and one of them unsaddled Dinnie. The other two gathered some dry sticks and scrub into a pile. Then one of them squatted and did something with the pile so that, after a few minutes, smoke started rising, and a little later, flame. They gathered some green scrub and bushes and heaped them near the fire. I don’t know how the man started the fire – I didn’t see him with any matches – but when they got the fire going properly I was sure my time had come!
I asked one of them what they were going to do, but they didn’t understand and took no notice of me. The three of them piled all the green bushes and scrub onto the fire which made a thick white smoke. Then one of them took the saddle cloth from Dinnie and kept putting it on and off the fire. The other two stood looking in different directions. It was at this moment that I realised, with relief, that they had built the fire to make smoke signals.
After awhile they built up the fire again, put more green scrub and bushes on and made more smoke signals. Then they stood looking in a north and westward direction. The whole operation must have taken at least a half hour. Suddenly one of them gave a shout and seemed very excited and pointed to something in the distance. The other two looked and then they all came over to me and one patted me on the shoulder and pointed at something in the distance. For awhile I couldn’t see anything to get excited about, then I saw it. Little clouds were going up into the air at small intervals from a hill top to the north-west, some three or four miles away.
One of the black men put the saddle on Dinnie and the other two put the fire out by throwing earth on it. When they were sure the fire was out, we set off towards where the smoke signals had been. They ran when going down hill and on the level ground but walked up the hills. It was amazing how they could travel over prickly scrub and stony ground with their bare feet.
We stopped about every two or three hours for the men to rest. Every time they stopped they would let Dinnie feed. I still had some small pieces of ‘roo meat in my pockets and I slipped them to my mouth and chewed them while we were travelling. The fear had left me now, and I knew the blacks were my friends.
This kind of travelling went on all the rest of that day until after dark. Apart from stopping for a drink of water when we came to a small water-course, the blacks had no food, and how they kept going I’ll never know. They were the blackest men I had ever seen – their hair and skin were jet black.
After dark they slowed to a walk. Then, while travelling on a rise, they stopped and one of them pointed to a small light in the distance. He put his hand on my leg and squeezed it. I couldn’t see his face in the dark but the gesture conveyed to me that we were close to the end of our journey.
An hour or so later we arrived at a large blacks’ camp. About thirty dogs came towards us barking. There were several large fires burning and in the dark these reminded me of a lot of small pinnacles.
We were soon surrounded by dozens of blacks and then, to my surprise, out walked Stan Smith. Some of the blacks took Dinnie and Stan said that they would look after her. ‘Bert, you come with me,’ he said. He took me to a fairly large mia-mia. Inside there were several older natives and they were all very pleased to see me. Stan asked how I managed to keep alive but before I could answer him a middle-aged native woman came in. She had a bowl like a drinking vessel with some kind of dark fluid in it. She handed it to me. I looked at Stan and he nodded his head and said to drink it, it would do me good. I didn’t like the look of it but it tasted fine.
Stan could talk the blacks’ language and understood their ways and customs. He spoke to the natives in the mia-mia and said to me after I had finished the food, ‘You better not have any more Bert after not having any for so long. You’ll have to be careful and start with only a little at a time for now.’ Stan had a rug and insisted that I have it. He lay on some skins that the natives had put there for him. I lay down on the skins in the place prepared for me, with the rug spread over me. I was dog-tired and was soon sound asleep.
When I awoke next morning the sun was high in the sky and it was very hot. Stan wasn’t there. The native woman came to me again with some more liquid like soup. I was hungry and drank it. Then Stan came into the mia-mia and asked me how I felt. I told him I was still very tired but felt much better, although I had a bad cold. While we were talking the woman came back in. This time she gave me some kangaroo steak that had been grilled on hot coals. She also gave me some kind of damper. I ate the steak and damper and it tasted beautiful. I also drank some water she had fetched me. Stan spoke to the woman and she looked at me and smiled. I asked Stan to thank her and the three men that found me. Stan replied, ‘That is what I was just saying to her.’
After awhile we left the mia-mia. You would have thought I was a special king or something, the fuss they made. The three men that had found me came and shook me by the hand and patted me on the shoulders in such a friendly and jolly manner. Then the boss, a large man (Stan told me later he was the chief), took me by the hand and wished me well. He could speak English in a way. He could make me understand what he meant, and one thing he made clear was that he and his people were my friends. A few minutes later they fetched our horses and Stan strapped his bedroll onto his saddle and said we must get back to the herd. He asked me if I felt well enough to ride. I assured him that I did. Then, after shaking hands with dozens of the blacks – men, women and children – we rode away.
We didn’t speak for quite awhile. Then Stan said, ‘I have some food in my saddle-bags, Bert. We’ll rest up later on and have some lunch.’ The day was very hot and Stan said that the extra heat this time of the year was unusual – it could mean another storm. I said, ‘I hope not. I’ve had enough storms to do me the rest of my life.’ Then Stan asked me how I had managed to live. I told him about the kangaroo carcase and the black man that left it there, and how I had taken pieces off the carcase and kept chewing them. He thought for awhile, then he said, ‘If you had approached the black he would have saved you then. All the blacks were on the look out for you. They’re all friendly. Don’t take any notice of the tales that you hear. Those things did really happen but many years ago. It’s different now.’
We camped for the night at a boundary rider’s shack and had something to eat. The boundary riders’ huts always had tea, sugar and some tinned meat in them so we made a billy of tea.
We sat talking for awhile and Stan asked me to explain what the country was like wh
ere I was lost. I did, and when I told him about deciding to follow the water-course no matter what, he said that it was good judgement and most likely saved my life. He also said that the kangaroo meat would have played a big part in keeping me going.
Stan was a good bushman and knew the country in the North like the back of his hand. He said, ‘That water-course you followed was a branch of the Gascoyne River – the Lyons – only you came across it up near Mount Augustus where it starts. That country all around there is very rugged and rough. Our herd should be travelling close to the other end of the Lyons about now.
There were two rough bunks in the hut. We lay down and I was soon asleep. Stan awakened me just after daylight and we had more tea and finished our food. Stan found a pencil and left a note on the table to the effect that we had camped there and taken two tins of meat to eat during the day. He estimated that we should catch the herd some time that day.
Late in the afternoon we came across tracks made by the herd. Stan said that the tracks were a day old so we should catch up to them before dark. About sundown we reached the camp. They had set up for the night close to the bend of a river. Stan told me again that this was the river I had been following when I was found. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you were on your way to safety although you were lost.’
We had now arrived at camp. Darkey and three blacks were out herding the cattle but the rest of the gang were there to give me a merry welcome back. They all ran to shake hands with me, and to my surprise, the Boss grabbed me and kissed me like he was my mother. He said that I looked pale and had lost a lot of weight. Stan remarked, ‘No wonder, with only grass to eat.’
